Intercourse Analogies both Spiritual and Sexual

[THE SABBATH BRIDE by Janet and Emmanuel Snitkovsky]

An enlightening talk I recently heard about the nature of the soul helped me make a connection that I had long sought after between two most mysterious aspects of life. It is often said that sexual intercourse has a mystical beauty beyond the act itself. However much this may be true, it seems that this beauty serves best as an analogy to give us insights into the truly mystical and beautiful intercourse the soul enters into upon searching for meaning and transcendence.

In this material world anything that grows organically begins its existence as a seed. The seed germinates, eventually matures into an adult plant and there comes a time in the life of this tree when it must give its fruit. When this happens, it has fulfilled itself because its ultimate purpose is to produce its own seed. However, a tree cannot produce another tree by itself, it needs to be pollinated from an external source in the same way that a woman cannot reproduce by herself. She needs to have a relationship with a male in order to conceive a child.

The soul functions in much the same way. Acting as a female it eventually reaches a state of maturity in which it too seeks to fulfill itself by producing its own fruit. It can turn wherever it likes to be fertilized, although it will only work with its own spiritual species. It enters into intimacy with the influences of the Manifestation of God (the Prophets and Founders of the great Religions) and opens itself to the power of the Revelation of Baha'u'llah (the Manifestation of God for this time). In this way it establishes mystical, spiritual intercourse with these forces which are then released within to impregnate it.

What is the child that is conceived from this mystical intercourse? It is the spirit of faith. This spirit of faith owes its existence to the Manifestation of God and to the soul itself, just as a parent. Here are some quotes to help define the spirit of faith:

The human spirit which distinguishes man from the animal is the rational soul; and these two names -- the human spirit and the rational soul -- designate one thing. This spirit ... embraces all beings, and as far as human ability permits discovers the realities of things and becomes cognizant of their peculiarities and effects, and of the qualities and properties of beings. But the human spirit, unless assisted by the spirit of faith, does not become acquainted with the divine secrets and the heavenly realities. It is like a mirror which, although clear, polished, and brilliant, is still in need of light. Until a ray of the sun reflects upon it, it cannot discover the heavenly secrets.1

This is the fruit of the tree of creation - to be freed from the darkness of the planet in order to enter the worlds of light. This is the object of existence; this is the fruit of the tree of humanity.2

It is the power which makes the earthly man heavenly, and the imperfect man perfect. It makes the impure to be pure, the silent eloquent; it purifies and sanctifies those made captive by carnal desires; it makes the ignorant wise.3

All spiritual realities have a counterpart in the material world which is why studying nature can be so illuminating. For example, comprehending the the difference in station between animals and humans gives us insights into the difference between humans and the Manifestation of God. Understanding the process through which we nourish our bodies gives us valuable insights into the nature of prayer. Grasping the transitory nature of the embryo gives us valuable insights into the journey of the soul through this life and into the next.

If we do not study nature with this frame of reference, though, we run the danger of appreciating the lesser beauty in and of itself thus missing the analogy that gives us insights into transcendence. This is where our society has gone wrong. We are incessantly taught through all types of mass media that sexual relationships are the real prize we are after, the golden fruit that satisfies our deepest desires. Jumping from one golden fruit to the next, as is all too often the custom, is not a justification of our media's message but rather an indication that people are seeking meaning in the symbolic fruit and not in the fruit itself.

The union created between partners through the sexual act is analogous to the union our soul yearns for with the Manifestation of God in the same way that the vastness of the ocean is a mere symbol of the truly breathtaking depth of wisdom and beauty contained in the Holy Books of all great religions.

Spiritual intercourse with the Manifestation of God shows us a door to true freedom, to our maturity and fulfillment both as an individual and as a society. This is the golden fruit.

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1. Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'i World Faith - Abdu'l-Baha Section, p. 316
2. Abdu'l-Baha, Divine Philosophy, p. 121
3. Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, p. 144

Murder with Impunity

Everybody should watch this video to understand the situation of Iran's largest religious minority, the Baha'i Faith. Although this persecution has intensified since the 1979 revolution, it has been continually carried out for over 150 years. It has taken all possible forms and its only boundaries are set by a thin veil of shame generated by constant U.N. resolutions of condemnation.

This video is the winner of a recent video contest about the plight of the Baha'is in Iran.

A Very Bad Night

Last Wednesday I woke up with a man standing over me swearing, thrusting a screwdriver into my left eye and covering my mouth. Now, a couple of days later, the rope marks have disappeared from my wrists and ankles although my right thumb still lacks all sensation. Later they tied my wife up too, thrusting cloth into our mouths and leaving us helpless. After we were sure they had left I was able to call our oldest son so he could get a knife and cut us loose. I didn't want to do that as he will probably never dispel that memory from his mind, but there was no other way. It is truly miraculous that none of our three children woke up during the whole episode as God only knows what the thieves would have done to a screaming child.

As you all can imagine, we are totally shocked. We live in a closed housing development and this is the first break-in since it was built four years ago. We are sure they targeted our house thinking that an American must have lots of money or jewels. They were wrong of course but they made a pretty good haul, taking our computers, ipods, cameras, dvd players and even clothes.

Since then we have been running around doing all of the legal work and patronizing the security industry more than I would like to. Getting the police and the legal authorities to do their job is almost as costly as losing our stuff, but if we don't do all of this we will have no hope of ever bringing these guys to justice.

Speaking of the thieves, they were pretty ignorant. Of course, they got what they came for, which requires at least some brains, but they did not know what our credit or debit cards were used for, nor what the portable dvd player my wife had could do. They asked many questions that you would not expect a thief to ask. They also asked for our forgiveness, and explained that the crisis has really hit them hard and how they felt really bad about buglarizing our home. Haha, apparently not bad enough!

I had a pillow over my head the whole time, so I could not see the guys. My wife gave them a full tour of the house. She was very, very valient and mature the whole time they were there.I still can't decide if my decision to not resist the thieves was intelligent or cowardly, or both. Not resisting gave the thieves liberty to do what they wished with my wife and children, which made this choice excruciatingly difficult. But, I hoped that it would considerably raise the possibility that they would leave us all unharmed. It worked out that way, but that doesn't relieve my feelings of cowardliness.

Our oldest son commented out of the blue that at least this happened to us and not to our neighbors because the thieves might have hurt them. He named each of the kids that live near us and stressed how awful that would have been for them. He is such a special kid, and this type of thing really brings it out in him.

Even though this was really traumatic for us, I'd like to put it in perspective. That very evening I was writing in this blog and I noticed some news on my twitter feed that only now can I begin to understand. Apparently just the previous evening a mob attacked six Baha'i homes in the town of Showranyiah, Egypt, burning them all and forcing the Baha'is to flee. Click here to see more details. Although we lost many valuabe things, we were able to wake our children up the next morning and continue with our lives. Those Egyptian Baha'is have to remake their lives completely and continue living in fear. My heart goes out for them.

iguanajournal interviews Ahmadi-Nejad

“The Government of Iran considers Baha’is to be apostates (apostasy, specifically conversion from Islam, is punishable by death) and defines the Baha’i faith as a political ‘sect.’ The Ministry of Justice states that Baha’is are permitted to enrol in schools only if they do not identify themselves as Baha’is…”*

Regarding Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, the country’s president, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times called him a ‘fruitbat’ and a ‘doofus’. I wouldn’t want to get on her bad side! Name-calling aside, there are certain things we all need to know about him and his government’s policies.

Being the media mogul that it is, iguanajournal obtained an exclusive interview with Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, the president of Iran. He blocked out an hour in his busy agenda for this interview on the Latin American leg of his tour to meet with Morales and Chavez. However, as you shall see in the following transcript, the interview didn’t last that long. Here is the transcript:

Iguanajournal – It is our pleasure to converse with you and in this way help bridge cultural, political and religious gaps between Westerners and Iranians.

Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad – (silent)

Iguanajournal – Ok, so we would like to get into some thorny issues that are on our reader’s minds. Foremost among them are the accusations coming from some quarters about a “widespread and calculated effort by the government to maintain and gradually intensify the persecution of Iranian Baha’is,” a growing community of between 300,000 and 350,000 members. There are several specific issues related to this, and one of the main concerns regards “incidents of abuse and discrimination directed at Baha’i students and children.” Is it true Mr. President, that these innocent children and youth are denied proper education because of their religious beliefs?

Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad – (silent)

Iguanajournal – I see, um, we have obtained an official government document, a “2 November 2006 letter from the headquarters of Payame Noor University to its regional branches, [which] states that it is government policy that Baha’i students ‘cannot enroll’ in Iranian universities and that if they are already enrolled, ‘they should be expelled.’” This seems to contradict the fact that “Iran claims that it has finally opened the doors to Baha’i students, after some 25 years of keeping them out of public and private universities in Iran,” Would you care to explain this?

Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad – (silent)

Iguanajournal – Sir, this is an interview. We would appreciate hearing your perspective on these important matters. (Waits 45 seconds). Ok, it also seems that the government has ordered a series of arrests and releases on specific groups of Baha’is around the country, demanded large bonds for their release, and ransacked their homes while in prison. Some of these people arrested in Tehran and Sanandaj are still in jail. We are sure you are aware that violating human rights in this way is against international law and is a disgrace to your noble Persian heritage. Could you help us understand this behavior?

Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad – (silent)

Iguanajournal – Well, um, maybe one final question. We have obtained these photographs, let’s see, here they are.

Destroying Baha'i cemeteries is quite … provocative. This is a grave human rights violation, and to be honest with you Mr. President, quite cowardly. We know that in recent months, the Iranian authorities have been “carrying out a widespread crackdown on civil society, targeting academics, women's rights activists, students, and journalists.” Although not alone, the Baha’i community is symbolic of your attitude towards fundamental issues of dignity, freedom and honor. Obviously the Baha’is, as well as other groups, represent some sort of threat to your government, but we can’t figure out what that could be as they have consistently obeyed instructions over the years by their supreme body in words similar to the following: “With an illumined conscience, with a world-embracing vision, with no partisan political agenda, and with due regard for law and order, strive for the regeneration of your country. By your deeds and services, attract the hearts of those around you, even win the esteem of your avowed enemies.”

The international community gazes sternly upon your regime, and although the nuclear development issue has dominated headlines, what goes on behind the scenes is even more newsworthy.

If you haven’t anything to say for yourself, then this interview need continue no further.

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I’d like to finish this blog extending my most heartfelt love for the Baha’is of Iran, express my awe at their spiritual strength and loyalty, and offer my best wishes that their situation improves soon.

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*http://bahais-of-iran.blogspot.com/

NYT quotes from: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/opinion/26dowd.html?hp

All other quotes taken from: http://news.bahai.org/